William Gladstone: New Studies and Perspectives, edited by Roland Quinault, Roger Swift and Ruth Clayton Windscheffel

Abstract

William Gladstone: New Studies and Perspectives, edited by Roland Quinault, Roger Swift and Ruth Clayton Windscheffel. Farnham and Burlington, Ashgate, 2012. xvii, 350 pp. $144.95 US (cloth). This volume contains papers from a conference held at Chester in 2009 to commemorate bicentenary of Gladstone's birth. A number of essays will interest not only specialists focused on Gladstone's life and political career, but also those with a wider curiosity about both public and private determinants of nineteenth-century British political culture. The shift represented here from a primarily political focus in earlier studies on Gladstone to an interest in greater variety of roles in life of nation (p. xvi) is announced in David Bebbington's Foreword and Ruth Clayton Windscheffel's Introduction. The book is then divided into six parts: Reputations, Images, Personal Questions, Gladstone as an Official, Ethics and Internationalism, and Epilogue. Some of essays are broad in their scope and implications, while others are much more limited and narrowly focused. Examples of former would be Frank Turner's investigation of complexities of Gladstone's Liberalism, which sees him as a political, but not a cultural radical, and Roland Quinault's exploration of ambivalences and inconsistencies of Gladstone's attitudes to war, in which he points out that, though Gladstone's policies of financial retrenchment and reform were incompatible with war expenditures, he nevertheless found reasons for pursuing armed conflicts supported by notions of divine retribution, duty, and honour. The psychological understanding of Gladstone's character and wealth of illustration that underlie both of these essays make them persuasive and compelling. Other essays in volume take on more specific topics, often with equally acute insight. For example, Richard Gaunt reassesses long-standing debate about Gladstone's relationship to Sir Robert Peel and question of whether it was patriotism or power that shaped their respective visions of providential destiny. In turn Chris Wigley looks at Gladstone's involvement with Labour, arguing that his greatest contribution to Liberal Party came not with his efforts at financial reform, free-trade, or Ireland, but rather through widening of franchise that brought the moral strength of a good portion of working people into political life (p. 57). Among best pieces of this specific nature is Richard Huzzey's investigation of Gladstone's attitude to suppression of slave trade, in which tensions of cruiser debate of 1850 reflect Gladstone's complex position, caught as he was between his interest in protecting West-Indies sugar trade and new direction of Peelite politics in context of strong abolitionist sentiments. Huzzey's discussion of economic aspect of Gladstone's moral arguments finds a good complement in Alan Warren's analysis of Gladstone's concern to limit role of Treasury in responding to problems of Ireland between 1853 and 1866. Warren points out that, as Chancellor of Exchequer for most of these years, Gladstone seemed more interested in tax policy and fiscal restraint in relation to Ireland than in reflecting on root causes of country's distress and what Government might do to relieve it. But by 1866, Warren argues, Gladstone was beginning to understand more clearly how various Irish issues were interconnected, and how difficult were opportunities for reform in matters of Church, education, and land. Geography is also focus of C. Brad Faught's discussion of Gladstone's ideas and actions while serving as Lord High Commissioner to Ionian Islands in late 1850s. Faught sees this mission as a rehearsal of imperial and international themes that would come to dominate three of Gladstone's four ministries. In this regard, Gladstone's failure to make any headway in sorting out Ionians' Greek nationalism seems less significant than his views on Britain's moral responsibilities that would inform his response to Bulgarian atrocities seventeen years later. …